Exploration : Flooded Ruins — Yannis Moulay - Worldbuilder & Level Designer

Level design : Melodic Garden & Flooded Ruins

I was the level design and product owner of the Mario + Rabbids : Sparks of Hope DLC2, The Last Spark Hunter, released in 2023. The game has been in co-development with Ubisoft Milan and Ubisoft Chengdu, with the support of the Ubisoft Pune QA team and featured a brand new quest in a lush, biophonic world that had mysteriously gone quiet.

*Arrival on the Melodic Gardens (Jungle)*

I was in charge of upholding the creative vision both in game and level design decisions in between the three-studios. Contrary to the other areas of the base game, the intention was now to have a much more linear world that contains a medium semi-open area centered around maritime navigation (the Flooded ruins) that I designed and implemented.

The Flooded Ruins

*Core intention : Design a space centered around boat & land navigation*

*Main objective : Destroyed the three cages holding the musical animals*

Side content is also present here and there, but this region has three main puzzles to solve : North in the scattered islands, East by the Door, and West within the enclosed space. Players come from the South Door.

The central island, with a merchant, is a hub, with a quest giver and the final battle of the region taking place once all puzzles have been completed.

*View on arriving to the Flooded Ruins with the landmark indicating the central island*

*Other side of the hub from the rocky peaks*

Puzzle 1 : The Labyrinth

A vast, secluded and bulky puzzle designed around an exotic ingredient : the rising walls.
They are unnoticeable before rising from the ground when a character approaches, making them both obstacles (when on the lower level) and platforms between columns (when on upper level)

*View of the labyrinth, courtesy of my level artist colleague Sun Qing Liang*

*A two-floors based labyrinth centered around rising walls*

*Rising walls : Unpredictable obstacles when down*

*Rising walls : Unpredictable bridges when up*

Puzzle 2 : Canon Mayhem

The second mandatory puzzle is played on the highest rocky peaks of the maps, creating memorable vistas thanks to verticality. The space is very fragmented and the player needs to use the multiple canons to launch their characters onto unaccessible areas and change the navigation layout using switches and invisible bridges to get to the end.

*View of the rock peaks, courtesy of my level artist colleague Sun Qing Liang*

*Example of other navigation ingredients weaved into the cannon-centric design*

Puzzle 3 : Dubious islands

The third puzzle is on two different ground : a sandy shore and a rocky island. The focus is heavy on the scan feature, that allows players to reveal invisible items.

Here, players need to find a key to unlock Melodic plants and complete the puzzle. I put the key in an adjacent island, that seems to be totally empty while it’s actually full of invisible ingredients, creating a twist on the feature and showering the players with rewards (currency, navigation elements, puzzles elements …) that are revealed as long as they press a button before the classical puzzle solving.

*Melodic plants necessary to progress are locked by barriers needing a key*

*Players look for invisible items using their related ability*

*Leading them to an apparently empty island …that hides many invisible ingredients*

Walkthrough

Puzzle 1 [Labyrinth] : 5:32 to 14:11
Puzzle 2 [Canon Mayhem] 17:39 to 23:04
Puzzle 3 [Dubious islands] 24:47 to 31:54
Streamer : HyperKirby58

Extra

Beside the intense work on the Flooded Ruins, I also did implementation of puzzles realized by other designers and collaborative blockouts, supervision of quests and iterations and advices on various areas of the map and took part in various design meeting to be sure the intentions were respected.